Lifestyle

Mason Comedians: preliminaries for D.C.’s Funniest College

Lifestyle March 6, 2013 at 3:50 pm Comments are Disabled

This year, Mason will send three student comedians off to the D.C.’s Funniest College Competition. For the tenth year, the D.C. Improv Comedy Club is hosting the event, waiting eagerly to hear the funniest fresh, live comedy from local students. The competition typically includes students from six nearby universities: George Mason, American, George Washington, Howard, Marymount and Maryland. Each university chooses one or two of their best performers and sends them off to the competition. On March 1, Mason hosted its own preliminary round in order to determine which aspiring comedians could make their audience laugh the most. Set up in the Johnson Center on a Friday night, six comedians were asked to show their sense of humor in a five-minute time limit, lined up with two featured comedians who introduced and concluded the show. Instead of picking two this year, Mason judges chose three people for two slots. Among the winners this year was a two-person act, performed by students Matt Pechiney, Film and Video Studies major, and Chris Lancashire, Government and International Politics major. The pair performed a duet of sorts, with Pechiney serving as the guitar player and Lancashire performing the vocals. Their unique approach to stand-up […]
Development and Maturation at Mason

Editorials, Lifestyle March 6, 2013 at 2:39 pm Comments are Disabled

“I’m really sick and tired of waiting for that building to be finished. How much longer do I have to wait to use it?” says the elderly gentleman wearing a blue blazer walking towards Enterprise, in front of the unfinished Exploratory Hall. His sentiment is one that is common yet quite overused. We get it. Mason has a lot of construction. Mason, where renovation is tradition. But no one seems willing to accept the fact that the waiting may be worth the wait. Mason was founded as an independent university in 1972, which makes our university a mere 41 years old. Compared to the University of Virginia, founded in 1819, and William and Mary, founded in 1693, Mason is a baby. This young age makes Mason susceptible to a lot of weaknesses, one of them being growing pains. A young university will inherently struggle to fill its shoes. Mason does not have the luxury of being a university that has had upwards of 200 years to figure out what it is going to look like. Instead, we are forced to face challenges that other universities skate around using their age. So as we travel on the road to the future, these older universities […]
Mason Makes Careers

Lifestyle February 26, 2013 at 2:23 pm Comments are Disabled

Every week, Broadside features a student or alumnus with a great internship or job to highlight the opportunities and potential earning a degree at Mason offers NAME: Craig Haseler GRADUATION DATE: Fall 2013 DEGREE: BS in Computer Science; Minor in Business INTERNSHIP: Information Technology Assistant at the American Lung Association (ALA) How would you describe the place you are interning at? The American Lung Association is one of the oldest non-profits in the country, founded to fight tuberculosis in the early 20th century, and now focusing on air pollution, asthma, anti-smoking campaigns and many other modern lung-related concerns. I work at the National Headquarters office on Pennsylvania Ave. in DC. What are some of your day-to-day responsibilities? I am in charge of the project to create a new internal intranet for the ALA and its volunteers nationwide that we are calling “LungNet.” A typical day might start with a conference call to our office in New York City, but I’m also working closely with national and local employees in Illinois, California and various places in between. Each day has a new challenge. A big project like this has many complications, so, I’m solving new problems every […]
Chocolate Lovers Festival sweetens Fairfax

Lifestyle February 26, 2013 at 2:17 pm Comments are Disabled

Chocolate cakes, candies, fudges and other sweet confections float around a chocolate lover’s paradise—or something Fairfax- natives know as the annual Chocolate Lover’s Festival. From March 2-3 the festival will return to Old Town Historic Fairfax and bring wafts of sugary-sweet cocoa with it. For the past 20 years, the event has drawn thousands of people from all over the Northern Va. area. Dozens of vendors sell an assortment of chocolate-flavored confections at their main event, a ‘Taste of Chocolate.” This year, the main event will be held at Old Town Hall, right off of University Drive, a short walk or CUE bus ride for Mason students. Last year, this event included a wide range of chocolate concoctions, including chocolate-flavored cotton candy and chocolate-covered Twinkies. One of the committee members from the City of Fairfax, Chris Cohen, believes that the annual Chocolate Lover’s Festival caters to more than just the average family or couple— it caters to the student population at Mason as well. “[The Chocolate Lover’s Festival] is a little different than most other festivals. This is more of a community event, where there are multiple organizations that participate in multiple events and bring something fun to the City […]
First audition in the Big Apple

Editorials, Lifestyle February 25, 2013 at 2:05 pm Comments are Disabled

Hi, my name is Paul, and I’ll be auditioning for the role of “point guard.” Did you want a contemporary monologue, or something a bit more classic? Or wait did you have some slides for me to read from? Is anyone else auditioning? I will take the silence and blank stares as a “please perform a prepared monologue. ” Oh, I almost forgot! Here are my headshots. I’m sorry I’m all out of sorts, this is my first audition in the Big Apple! Let me just say that it was pretty challenging to find this place! All I could find online was “Madison Square Garden.” Also, once I got inside, which was NOT easy, I tried asking a guard for directions to the audition, and he tried to arrest me! Thank God I had my pepper spray, or I might have been late. I always carry pepper spray on me, just in case someone tries any funny business. Mama told me, “look out for the creeps in the big city,” and now I know why. Even security guards can be out to get you in this city! I don’t even know if it’s real pepper like Pa grows back at home. […]
The struggle for happiness at Mason

Editorials, Lifestyle February 25, 2013 at 2:00 pm Comments are Disabled

“I thought college students were supposed to be happy and carefree,” said the middle-aged woman to her husband as they sit in the JC with their son after a morning tour. “They all look miserable.” She looks around the atrium, looking at the faces that crowd through the lines at the register and heading down the stairs and I can’t blame her for making such a blunt comment. From where I sit, I can spy at least seven furrowed brows, eight crossed arms and dozens of eyes cast to the floor. Happy or pleasant looking faces run in the minority and it is no wonder that visitors find the mid-day Mason lunch rush to be a miserable experience. But this is not some call to arms to smile more at the people you walk by or say thank you to the person swiping your Mason ID for expensive sushi. This is an acknowledgment of the fact that college might not be the happiest time of your life. “Happy” is defined as feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. That is quite possibly the last thing that college is. College is a lot of things; institutionalized competition for the longest list of accomplishments, the systematic […]
New Mason club going natural with style

Lifestyle February 24, 2013 at 7:17 pm Comments are Disabled

This past semester, My Natural organiza- tion was formed at George Mason University to embrace and promote organic and natural beauty. “The purpose of My Natural is for college women to empower each other and use each other as resources in order to maintain healthy hair and be proud of their identity, while also creating a sisterhood,” said Saffie Kamara, who is the vice president of My Natural. The birth of My Natural actually occurred at Winston-Salem State University during September 2011 by Johnene Benson, who purchased a relaxer that resulted in her hair loss. Because of this aesthetical misfortune, Benson was inspired to foster a group empha- sizing the allure and importance of natural hair and championing women’s raw beauty. To expand knowledge on maximizing physi- cal attributes, My Natural meets twice a month and invites guest speakers to discuss topics ranging from excellent organic hair products to tips on how to install weave in an alternative fashion. The organization also hosts meetings and do-it-yourself sessions where members can discuss and share commentaries and opin- ions about other ways to maximize their hair’s potential. Their first organized meeting was held Feb. 12. Twenty-six participants arrived and went home […]
Mason photos speak louder than words on Tumblr

Lifestyle February 24, 2013 at 6:09 pm Comments are Disabled

If photographs could talk, a look through Walter Martinez’s “Humans of GMU” Tumblr blog could single-handedly describe moments across campus that define the diversity and uniqueness of Mason’s campus. Martinez is a street photographer, meaning he uses his camera to capture otherwise forgotten and passed-by moments, focusing on Mason’s campus. “I want to capture the people and what’s going on,” Martinez said. Inspired by Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York” photography project, this Mason student takes photo- graphs to capture the people around him and the inspiring moments of everyday life. Martinez’s love of art runs in his family. His father owns an art studio and gave his son an old Nikon from the ‘80s. Soon after playing around with it, he enrolled in a photography class. Last semester, to further pursue his interest in art, Martinez created a blog to show his images. The trickiest part of street photography is getting a good feel of how to angle a shot without looking through the lens. It is best to get as close as you can without overwhelming the subject. This style is meant to capture real-life moments, as people in studios may feel awkward knowing they are behind the […]
Students support “No Fear in Love” 6-mile race

Lifestyle February 24, 2013 at 6:03 pm Comments are Disabled

It’s 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Not a normal hour for a group of Mason students to be up. Not only are they awake and functioning when most students are fast asleep, they are about to run a six-mile race around Arlington. Are they crazy? No, not really. Dedicated? Most definitely. But these Mason students aren’t running six miles in the rain and cold for themselves or for their teammates, they are running for one victim of dating abuse who will get the chance to start fresh and receive a one-year scholarship to Mason. This scholarship is the result of the “No Fear in Love” race, a race dedicated to championing one’s inner power. This was the race’s third year beginning at 6:45 a.m., an un-Godly hour to some, but to Karen Bontrager, the organizer of the race and “No Fear in Love” campaign, this early hour symbolizes something much more meaningful. “This is about running together away from the darkness and into the light,” said Bontrager, who wants the darkness at the beginning of the race to symbolize a dark past or cloud in life. Runners will overcome this darkness together, so every runner will, literally and figuratively, push […]
Graduate student shoots for infinity and beyond

Lifestyle February 24, 2013 at 5:56 pm Comments are Disabled

Student’s alter-ego Kam the Astronaut campaigns for space trip The first time Kamil Stelmach stepped into public wearing his astronaut suit, he was stopped by a police officer. “It turns out that it’s a class six felony to have your identity concealed in public in Virginia. So I got a little lecture on that, but since the officer figured I wasn’t going to rob a bank, he took a picture and shared it with the department and let me go,” said Kamil Stelmach, graduate chemistry student at Mason. That incident marked just one small bump in the road for Stelmach’s potential future journey to space. “The inspiration itself came about ever since I was little. I am originally from Poland, and one of the first few books I had was in Polish. The title translated to, “Stars and Planets,” and ever since I read it, I was really excited about space,” Stelmach said. Stelmach’s inspiration led him to enter himself into Axe Apollo Space Academy’s competition to send someone to space. The competition is composed of two parts. The first is a sweepstakes where anyone can enter him or herself in hopes of being chosen in a random drawing of […]